On the last day the transfer portal is open for players to enter, Duke found a creative way to confirm the return of one player for his sophomore season.
Isaiah Evans will return to Duke. The program’s official Twitter account “asked” him on Tuesday night, to which there was a succinct reply.
Evans’ return means the Blue Devils return a prolific scorer who’s in line for a larger role in the upcoming season. How large that role winds up being depends on what additions Duke makes over the next few weeks, plus whatever development Evans has in the next six months.
The 6-6, 175-pounder played sporadically for the 35-win Blue Devils this season. He was relegated to the end of the bench early in the season, with DNPs in each of Duke’s games against Kentucky, Arizona and Kansas.
And then came his 18-point explosion in the first half against Auburn, the microwavable scorer netting all of those on 3-pointers.
Evans started three times late in the season — against Florida State on March 1 when Tyrese Proctor was out, he had a season-high 19 points. He also started both games Cooper Flagg missed in the ACC tournament.
The North Mecklenburg High School product played 19 minutes in Duke’s first-round NCAA tournament win, and then played a combined 19 minutes in the Blue Devils’ other four NCAA tournament games.
In 17 of the 24 games Evans played at least 10 minutes, he made multiple 3-pointers. Along with the Auburn game, that included games at Miami and Virginia with five 3s each, and games against Virginia Tech and Boston College with four 3s each.
Evans’ season average of 41.6% on 3-pointers was the best of any Duke rotation player (Spencer Hubbard was 3-for-5). He made 62 of 149 3-pointers.
Evans’ Offensive Bayesian Performance Rating was 5.08, third-best among the Blue Devils behind Flagg (6.48) and Kon Knueppel (5.23), per EvanMiya. Evans’ Defensive BPR, though, was 1.13 — second-lowest of any player in Duke’s 10-man rotation, ahead of only Caleb Foster (0.25).
